Ken Winters, executive vice
president of Rubber Recovery
Inc., explained the rather
convoluted history of the company,
and his involvement. According
to Winters, Rubber Recovery
got its start as UTT, a small
operation that recycled tires
under the ownership of Vern
Mabry.

Robert Davis, working for GreenMan
Technologies, bought the company
from Mabry for GreenMan. Davis
ran the company as GreenMan
Technologies of California
for six or seven years, before
he moved on.

Meanwhile, Winters had been
working for his family’s rubber
recycling business, Altos Rubber
Incorporated, which had been
founded by his grandfather
in 1939. When the company dissolved
in 2004, he opened a brokerage
business and did some consulting
work.

One of Winters’ consulting
customers was GreenMan Technologies
of California, and said that
he acted as “part time sales
manager and sales force.”

At that time, Davis had already
left GreenMan Technologies
and had partnered with Mabry;
the two were negotiating to
buy the California business
from GreenMan. When they saw
Winters, they recognized him
and asked him if he would work
for them if they succeeded
in buying the business.

Winters said that it was “kind
of an interesting position
to be in,” trying to build
up the business for his current
employer while also looking
out for the interests of his
future employer. “There’s an
enormous amount of strength
in the truth,” he said of his
precarious position.

In the end, the business was
sold to Davis and Mabry who
renamed it Rubber Recovery.
Winters became the executive
vice president. And, according
to Winters, “everybody’s happy.”

Winters background in the rubber
business started with the history
of his grandfather who was
at first cutting tire patches
from old rubber. Later, he
started thinking about uses
for the buffed bits of rubber
that came from tires that were
being recapped. He ended up
selling those buffings to people
who made things like mud flaps.
“It didn’t have to be pretty,”
Winters said.

When Winters’ father, Robert,
came into the business, he
realized that grandfather was
sifting through the material
and throwing away the larger
pieces. “He went off in search
of machinery to do size reduction,”
Winters said, which helped
the company recycle even more
product.

Winters started working for
the company from the ground
up, and he said that over time,
he did every job in the company
except three: changing cutting
knives, driving an 18-wheeler,
and using a cutting torch.
“As a kid, I was helping to
drag around bags of asphalt,”
he said.

Robert Winters, along with
Charlie McDonald, was co-inventor
of a process that added rubber
to asphalt, which led to stronger
and more resilient material.
Following in his father’s inventive
footsteps, Winters said that
he was the first person in
the United States to sell rubber
for use in equestrian surfaces.

Winters explained that rubber
had been in use in Europe for
horse arenas, but that Americans
were resistant to the idea.
“It took 10 to 12 years to
convince them,” he said. Eventually,
Winters convinced one person,
a veterinarian, to use tire
rubber in his horse arena.
The vet liked the surface so
much that he wrote an article
about it for an equestrian
publication, which gave the
idea a wider audience. “He
was biased against it at first,
but afterwards he was very
positive,” Winters said.

Now, Winters, through Rubber
Recovery, sells rubber for
playground surfacing, mats,
pads, equestrian arenas, and
more. The company also resells
usable tires, and makes every
attempt to use every portion
of the tires it takes in. “We
are looking to make a decent
living without leaving any
carnage behind,” Winters said.

He also said that one of the
biggest challenges in the rubber
recycling business is that
“the machinery is very hard
to keep together.” He said
that people who get into the
business from other industries
often don’t realize that rubber
“does incredible damage to
the inside of machinery.”

Besides maintenance issues,
he said that since the margins
are so low, “there’s no room
for any errors or any surprises.”
To keep the company headed
in the right direction, Winters
said that they’re willing to
try new things within the company
– to keep the inventive streak
that his father and grandfather
had. But he added that it’s
not a competition in the company,
it’s a team effort.

The company’s ultimate goal
is to utilize every last bit
of the tire material so that
nothing ever goes to waste,
“and ultimately create products
of our own.”